Tesla, New York Times trade shots over Model S coverage (Updated)

Elon Musk writes a scathing review of the review and consumers get left in the dark.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken to the official blog of the electric car company to respond to criticism of the company's Model S sedan published by the New York Times. In an article published February 8, The Times' John Broder criticized the car's cold-weather mileage on a test drive from Washington, DC up Interstate 95. In a series of Twitterupdates on February 11, Musk declared the article "fake," and he pledged to detail "what actually happened" on the company blog.

Broder's account, titled "Stalled Out on Tesla's Electric Highway," relays the journey from DC to Boston along I-95, which has been newly fitted with Tesla's Supercharger stations, claimed to be the fastest stations available. At these, Model S owners can recharge at 4.5 times the normal rate, allowing a half-charge of the battery in half an hour for a range of 150 miles. Tesla provides the electricity free of charge.

The first East Coast Supercharge stations are strategically located at Newark, Delaware and Milford, Connecticut. The 200-odd miles between the two should be well within the capability of a 85-kWh Model S given its claimed range: 265 miles according to fueleconomy.gov and 300 miles at 55mph according to Tesla.

Broder’s side

Setting out from the suburbs of DC with a full charge, Broder reports that the temperature was 30°F. According to his account, he arrived at the Newark Supercharger station with roughly a half charge remaining. There he topped up to a full charge once more. However, by the time Broder was 20 miles out from the second Supercharger at Milford, the estimated mileage was 10 miles. He made it to the Supercharger, but only barely, and despite having followed Tesla's range-maximization advice which included employing cruise control when the estimated range started to look hairy earlier in that leg of the journey.

At Milford, Broder spent "nearly" an hour recharging the Model S to the point that its estimated range was 185 miles, which he describes as being "well beyond" the next stage of the trip. The next stage is a little convoluted. Broder's intention was to travel to Stonington, Connecticut for dinner, stopping overnight at Groton on the way back to Milford for another charge the next morning, before a final leg to New York. Google Maps puts the round trip of Milford to Milford, via Stonington and Groton, at 142 miles.

By the time Broder stopped at Groton for the night, he reports that the Model S was reporting a remaining range of 79 miles. However, by the next morning, when the mercury showed 10°F outside, this had dropped to 25 miles. Following Tesla's advice, Broder ran the heat in the car for a half hour to condition the battery, after which the estimated range had fallen to 19 miles, effectively stranding Broder in Groton. However, Tesla tracked down a (non-Super) charging facility in Norwich "only 11 miles away." There, Broder says he was cleared by Tesla to set out for Milford after an hour's charging. He made it as far as Branford before the car shut down, the battery having run completely flat. The Model S was carried the rest of the way to Milford by a flatbed truck. From there, Broder was able to recharge for an "uneventful" drive to Manhattan.

Musk’s Beef

Ever since a Tesla Roadster was depicted running out of juice in a segment of the BBC's Top Gear TV show in 2008, Musk claims that data logging is enabled in all of its vehicles when used for test drives by members of the media. Such data-logging was apparently enabled for this trip.

In a blog post titled "A Most Peculiar Test Drive," Musk presents a series of annotated graphs labeled the "Vehicle Logs" for the trip. Tesla told Ars that this was the rawest form available. Above these, Musk gives a bulleted lists of "facts" that contradicted Broder's account. Among these are the claim that at no stage did the Model S run out of charge.

Musk also claims that for the "final" 61-mile leg, the charge cable was disconnected with the Model S reporting a range of 32 miles, "in obvious violation of common sense." Here, Musk is referring to the Norwich charge, his quoted figures coming from a graphical companion to the article published by the Times. Broder's original story does not state the estimated range displayed by the Model S as he left Norwich, which would seem to be the most crucial figure of them all. The same article graphic states that the Model S traveled 51 miles before shutting down at Branford.

Musk additionally claims that Broder never activated cruise control and that he took a detour into downtown Manhattan before his first arrival at the Milford Supercharger. There, Musk asserts, "instead of plugging in the car, he drove in circles for over half a mile in a tiny, 100-space parking lot. When the Model S valiantly refused to die, he eventually plugged it in."

Clear as mud

If the figures quoted in the accompanying graphic are correct, then it does seem strange that Broder departed on a leg of approximately 60 miles with an estimated range of 32 miles on the clock. Ars has asked the Times for clarification of this latter figure.

However, Musk's point about a Manhattan detour seems more dubious given that this is barely out of Broder's way. In a follow-up post on the Times' Wheels blog, Broder says that this added 2 miles to his journey. As for driving in circles around the parking lot, Broder told the Daily Intelligencier that he was "looking for the unmarked and unlighted Supercharger port in the dark."

As for Musk's most damning charge, that the battery of the vehicle was never drained, this has been flatly disputed by Rogers Automotive & Towing, the company that provided the flatbed to rescue Broder. Talking to Jalopnik, Donna Rogers said that the company's records show that the battery was completely dead.

There are further points of dispute in Musk's response and Broder's follow-up (plus analysis from the Atlantic Wire), but those recounted above seem most fundamental. Tesla is declining to comment beyond Musk's blog post.

Update: The author of the New York Times story replied to Elon Musk's blog this afternoon, addressing one of Musk's most puzzling accusations—that Broder expected the Model S to reach a station 61 miles away when the car read that it has 32 miles on a charge. Broder says that the Tesla lost much of its charge overnight, and Tesla employees "told me that an hour of charging (at a lower power level) at a public utility in Norwich, Conn., would give me adequate range to reach the Supercharger 61 miles away."

When the car only read 32 miles to the charge after that hour, Broder proceeded to drive to the next charging station, as Tesla employees had earlier claimed that "moderate-speed driving would 'restore' the battery power lost overnight."

Update 2: CNN's Peter Valdes-Dapena has completed a test drive up I-95 from D.C. the full way to Boston. He reports that he completed the longest individual leg, the 200 miles between the Superchargers of Milford and Newark, with an estimated range of 40 miles remaining. This was despite missing an exit, though to extend range, he did employ cruise control and limit the climate control to 72°F. However, without an overnight stop in below-freezing temperatures, this is far from a repeat of Broder's test, though it is arguably more representative of the way Model S owners are likely to drive the I-95.

James Holloway
James is a contributing science writer. He's a graduate of the Open University, with a B.Sc. in Technology and a Diploma in Design and Innovation. Twitter@jamesholloway

359 Reader Comments

You're describing Tesla, a company that only exists because of a half billion dollar federally backed loan. I see little reason why the government should support a single private company when there is a viable and commercially successful tech that's thriving on its own. There is plenty of researchers at universities across this country that could use a half-billion dollar boost.

Really? University researchers take loans? I see your point then.

I'm not going to get into a line-by-line refutation of your wall-o-text, it gets boring way too fast. I just got in here in the first place because of your short-sighted "if it's not mass market it's a failure" shtick, and hybrid's vs EVs as a zero-sum game and all that BS. It's all useless unless it touches every car, etc, etc.

You think government backed corporate development is a waste of money, good for you. Have at it. It's often the correct position anyway; I don't think McDonalds should get tax breaks for advertising McNuggets in Japan, for instance. But if carbon is a real problem for you, I'd think you'd not be so negative about a few billion loaned into the biggest carbon-producing industry in the US in the hope of possibly solving one major part of the problem. Obviously, YMMV.

I had 88 miles left, according to the car's computation. ... But while parked outside my house overnight, the temperature dipped and so did the indicated range, which now read only 58 miles

Its all over the Tesla forums:http://www.teslamotors.com/no_NO/forum/ ... e-warningsbattery lost 30 (thirty) miles of range overnight while keeping itself warm. Every time you put the car in park while in cold weather, the car warns you and suggests that you plug in... Don't Ignore this Warning.

No, they accept grants. The federal funds that were handed to Tesla as a loan could have been allocated to federal research grants. This is commonly known as budgeting.

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But if carbon is a real problem for you, I'd think you'd not be so negative about a few billion loaned into the biggest carbon-producing industry in the US in the hope of possibly solving one major part of the problem

Because the payoff from those billions is a decade(s) away. The fastest and most effective thing that can be done now is to encourage people to buy low emission vehicles and trade in their gasoline cars. It is to get these cars into people's hands now. It isn't to prop up a company that makes $60,000 sports sedans that comes with a long list of usage restrictions. It's ludicrous that scarce funds should be diverted to this pet project when hybrids offer much of the benefit of electric at lower cost. They're still more expensive than gas cars which is the hurdle that needs to be chipped away - hybrids replacing gas cars is the realistic goal, not electric vehicles replacing hybrids.

What you want isn't support for a technology but support for a company. You can support the former without shoving money into the latter because Tesla isn't electric and electric isn't Tesla. The two aren't the same. The battery overlap that you have pointed out means the advancement of hybrid is almost certainly going to be an improvement in electric technology. Government doesn't need to keep Tesla alive when car buyers won't for electric to flourish. Electric will be just fine long after Tesla shuts down.

It's not logical and predictable. I don't have to keep my laptop plugged in when it's sleeping. I don't have to keep an iPad plugged in when it's sleeping. I've never noticed my smartphone get appreciably worse battery life in cold weather. The cars need special treatment.

I put my iPad or laptop to sleep, I leave them unattended long enough and when I awake them, even though they did nothing, they have lost charge... however imperceptible and irrelevant it is to me.The difference is that I'm not letting them sleep out in freezing conditions, that's the meaningful difference and why the car needs "special" treatment.

DrPizza wrote:

Really? I normally skim the manuals, at least, but I've never noticed that. I'm not saying you're wrong; perhaps the manuals do include that information. But I've never read it.

I think your expectations of batteries are wildly different from most people's expectations of batteries. Most people stick batteries in a drawer for years at a time until they're needed, and, the occasional leak aside, they cope with this just fine.

Yes, really, and since you don't really qualify as a clueless average user, how can I expect the real average user to do so, you win that one, even though I find it slightly depressing.

DrPizza wrote:

And yet, every diesel will have a glow plug warning light, information in the manual, and guidance about fuel turning to wax in cold weather.

If only because there will always be first time users that need to be taught. And that may be where Tesla has failed, in explaining and educating on the particulars of EVs and their vulnerability to certain climatic conditions.

I called Tesla in California, and the official I woke up said I needed to “condition” the battery pack to restore the lost energy. That meant sitting in the car for half an hour with the heat on a low setting. (There is now a mobile application for warming the battery remotely; it was not available at the time of my test drive.)

After completing the battery conditioning process, the estimated range reading was 19 miles; no way would I make it back to Milford.

The Tesla people found an E.V. charging facility that Norwich Public Utilities had recently installed. Norwich, an old mill town on the Thames River, was only 11 miles away, though in the opposite direction from Milford.

After making arrangements to recharge at the Norwich station, I located the proper adapter in the trunk, plugged in and walked to the only warm place nearby, Butch’s Luncheonette and Breakfast Club, an establishment (smoking allowed) where only members can buy a cup of coffee or a plate of eggs. But the owners let me wait there while the Model S drank its juice. Tesla’s experts said that pumping in a little energy would help restore the power lost overnight as a result of the cold weather, and after an hour they cleared me to resume the trip to Milford.

To summarize: 1. He called Tesla, who told him to "condition" the battery.2. When that didn't restore the charge, he called Tesla again, who found him a recharge facility in the opposite direction.3. He plugged in and waited another hour, after which he called Tesla's people and they cleared him to resume his original journey.

And what happened after that?

Broder wrote:

The displayed range never reached the number of miles remaining to Milford, and as I limped along at about 45 miles per hour I saw increasingly dire dashboard warnings to recharge immediately.

What should Broder have done if he was a 'typical driver'? Get help!- The fact is that Broder had done this before. (He called the Tesla company when he was out of range of the supercharger station.)

Broder wrote:

After completing the battery conditioning process, the estimated range reading was 19 miles; no way would I make it back to Milford. The Tesla people found an E.V. charging facility that Norwich Public Utilities had recently installed. Norwich, an old mill town on the Thames River, was only 11 miles away,

And at the end of the test drive Broder called the Tesla company again only it was too late.

Broder wrote:

Mr. Merendino, the product planner, found an E.V. charging station about five miles away.

To summarize: 1. Previously Broder had been "cleared" by the Tesla company but when his car did not have enough range, he called the Tesla company for help.2. When Broder left the charging facility at Norwich Public Utilities and he was getting repeated warnings that the car needed to be charged, he should have immediately called the Tesla company again to get help in finding another charging station. 3. Broder did not try to get the car charged (for several miles on the road) even though the Tesla company could have helped him with that.4. As a result, the car's battery ran out of energy.

I have yet to see a laptop able to give me a useful evaluation of remaining battery life in units of time. If even Apple can't pull it off, I'm not expecting Tesla to... and it's absolutely normal, given the number of variables.

Dunno what laptops you've been using. I sure have.

MacBook Pro 2012 using Lion and Mountain Lion... yes, it gives accurate information based on my immediate and recent activity, the fact it is accurate doesn't make it any more meaningful.

Yes, I'm happy to know that it can last 9h idling, or 6h on Office, or 3h watching a movie, that's accurate, but barely useful unless you plan on having only one type of workload all day long, which is fine for most people, but for those not in this case, the endurance estimations in time units are worthless, however accurate they are.

And I'm going to blow $80k on this car for what reason? This is a car for people who want attention, not a cost effective commuting vehicle.

I would go for the Chevy Volt and not have to worry about miles to go between charging stations, overnight stays in cold weather, Elon Musk writing me a nastygram if the vehicles' data doesn't match his idea of how things get ordered in his world....

And of course, gas would have to scream up to the $6-8/gal range before even the Volt would be worth the cost.

Any 80+k car is for people who want attention. After naming the Model S Car of the Year, Motor Trend basically said it would have won even if it were gas powered (they also said it's "one of the quickest American four-doors ever built."). It is a luxury car. The Volt is not. I'd be surprised if there is any cross shopping between the two (also considering one is fully electric and the other is a hybrid).

No, they accept grants. Money that was allocated to Tesla loans could have been shifted to federal research grants. Are research grants new to you?

You think the government broke its piggybank and then had to choose between loaning its dollar over here and granting it over there? If you don't understand the difference between a loan and a grant, there's no helping you. You're married to your false choices, apparently.

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But if carbon is a real problem for you, I'd think you'd not be so negative about a few billion loaned into the biggest carbon-producing industry in the US in the hope of possibly solving one major part of the problem

Because the payoff from those billions is a decade away.

... and that's even assuming there will be a payoff; there's always the risk it won't pan out at all. But that's the only way we can make progress on these issues; make the best improvements we can right now (higher milage standards, hybrids) while simultaneously investing in even bigger potential improvements in the future. Again with the false choice - I just don't get it. Yes, Musk is rich. He's also well positioned to do some of the work that we need done, so I'm not going to hold his wealth against him so long as he gets the job done. And yes he's doing luxury cars now, but that's a business strategy to target a less price sensitive market while maximizing potential return from his limited production capacity. Again, not a moral failure.

You think the government broke its piggybank and then had to choose between loaning its dollar over here and granting it over there? If you don't understand the difference between a loan and a grant, there's no helping you. You're married to your false choices, apparently.

I didn't say giving Tesla's loan broke the federal budget - I asked why a private company deserved $500 million when an equivalent amount could have been shifted to recipients who do the thing you were advocating, e.g. research, instead of paying for Tesla office rent and janitorial services, among other things. Simple question, no coherent answer. Just because $500 million is a relatively small amount in the budget doesn't mean it's ok to spend it on anything.

Quote:

Yes, Musk is rich. He's also well positioned to do some of the work that we need done, so I'm not going to hold his wealth against him so long as he gets the job done. And yes he's doing luxury cars now, but that's a business strategy to target a less price sensitive market while maximizing potential return from his limited production capacity. Again, not a moral failure.

And government funds should be helping him execute his business strategy because...? I didn't say his wealth was morally objectionable - I asked why given his healthy access to capital, the government needs to subsidize him. Yours is a strawman's argument, pretending like I was attacking his wealth. I didn't, I asked why his company needed $500 million from the taxpayer when he could have supplied the capital. It's a very simple question - why should the government pay the startup costs of a billionaire?

I didn't say his wealth was morally objectionable - I asked why given his healthy access to capital, the government needs to subsidize him. Yours is a strawman's argument, pretending like I was attacking his wealth. I wasn't, I asked why his company needed $500 million from the taxpayer when he could have supplied the capital. Still waiting for an answer.

So you know what he has his capital tied up in, do you? Please do share.

I have no idea if the feds means-tested the loan or not, and frankly I don't care. If the government develops a loan programme to encourage a type of industrial development they find important, he's as entitled to them as Ford is. I'd be more concerned that they evaluate applications based on merit.

So you know what he has his capital tied up in, do you? Please do share.

I don't know how he's got his wealth structured but it's irrelevant. If his capital is liquid, why didn't he use it? if his capital is illiquid, why is it the government's job to pay? Why can't he turn to banks and private lenders who offer him funds in exchange for collateral against his illiquid assets? That's what folks who have most of their wealth in their homes do - they go to banks and get a loan offset by a lien against their house if they default. Puzzling that you seem to think the lender of a illiquid billionaire is Washington, D.C. and not Bank of America.

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I have no idea if the feds means-tested the loan or not, and frankly I don't care. If the government develops a loan programme to encourage a type of industrial development they find important, he's as entitled to them as Ford is. I'd be more concerned that they evaluate applications based on merit.

Again, he wasn't given a loan for "industrial development" - he was given a loan to set up a car company that's been such a raging success that he won't release sales figures. If he had been given a loan to develop a car battery that didn't lose its charge at cold temperature or something like that, I'd be all in favor (that's what happened with NASA and his SpaceX company and that's great). But the Tesla loan wasn't "industrial development." He was lent money to become a car dealer. That is a waste of funds and none of your irrelevant distractions demonstrate otherwise.

Again, if he has voluntarily and willingly placed his capital in a position where it's not easily accessible, why is it the government's job to pay?

Again with the incomprehension of loan vs pay. And he certainly does have his own money in the company; a big chunk of his net worth is in there already. What do you expect him to do, take it out and put it back in again?

Would you apply the same logic to Ford, who also received money under the same loan programme? Or to Ford under a hybrid car development programme? I'm trying to scope out the bounds of your objections here.

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But the Tesla loan wasn't "industrial development." He was lent money to become a car dealer. That is a waste of funds.

A car dealer? Seriously? Like DDarko's RRRRAM-orama on the ol' 8th line? Why does the idea that these loans are for industrial development bother you so much? That's just weird.

Again, he wasn't given a loan for "industrial development" - he was given a loan to set up a car company that's been such a raging success that he won't release sales figures. If he had been given a loan to develop a car battery that didn't lose its charge at cold temperature or something like that, I'd be all in favor (that's what happened with NASA and his SpaceX company and that's great). But the Tesla loan wasn't "industrial development." He was lent money to become a car dealer. That is a waste of funds and none of your irrelevant distractions demonstrate otherwise.

And your discussion is a complete diversion from the topic at hand. The merits or demerits of the loan will be revealed in the coming years.

Again with the incomprehension of loan vs pay. And he certainly does have his own money in the company; a big chunk of his net worth is in there already. What do you expect him to do, take it out and put it back in again?

He should find private lenders and investors who back his business plan and model. Again with the incomprehension between private vs public money.

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A car dealer? Seriously? Like DDarko's RRRRAM-orama on the ol' 8th line? Why does the idea that these loans are for industrial development bother you so much? That's just weird.

He sells cars, hence, a car dealer. Lee Iococca sold cars. Sergio Marchionne sells cars. Musk is in the business of making and selling cars - Tesla isn't incorporated as a charity as far as I'm aware. What bugs you so much about the description? Would you prefer human visionary, eventual colonizer of the solar system and gift to mankind?

GrandNagusZek wrote:

And your discussion is a complete diversion from the topic at hand. The merits or demerits of the loan will be revealed in the coming years.

The diversion is acting like sales, car price and consumer usability are unfair yardsticks to hold Tesla to.

He should find private lenders and investors who back his business plan and model. Again with the incomprehension between private vs public money.

But you were fine earlier with government money going into hybrids, remember? "Every penny that goes into EVs is a penny lost to hybrids... sssAAAve the gentle hybrid!"

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He sells cars, hence, a car dealer. Lee Iococca sold cars. Sergio Marchionne sells cars. Musk is in the business of making and selling cars - Tesla isn't incorporated as a charity as far as I'm aware. What bugs you so much about the description?

Umm... nothing, except that's not what I was objecting to. Let me play it back to you:

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But the Tesla loan wasn't "industrial development." He was lent money to become a car dealer. That is a waste of funds.

That's some grade-A bullshit, right there. The money was loaned to develop EVs, full stop. Industrial development, whether you object to the term or not. Nobody gives a fig who sells them.

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Would you prefer human visionary, eventual colonizer of the solar system and gift to mankind?

Again with the incomprehension of loan vs pay. And he certainly does have his own money in the company; a big chunk of his net worth is in there already. What do you expect him to do, take it out and put it back in again?

He should find private lenders and investors who back his business plan and model. Again with the incomprehension between private vs public money.

You might as well copy and paste any debates about Solyndra. Our government has a history of using public money for research, then channeling it's profits through private companies. If you want to make a moral argument against corporate welfare, fine. But lay out the charges against our airline industries while you're at it, or our nuclear plant manufacturers, for that matter. Again, why is this relevant in a discussion about journalistic integrity, the viability of EVs, and battery technology?

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He sells cars, hence, a car dealer. Lee Iococca sold cars. Sergio Marchionne sells cars. Musk is in the business of making and selling cars - Tesla isn't incorporated as a charity as far as I'm aware. What bugs you so much about the description? Would you prefer human visionary, eventual colonizer of the solar system and gift to mankind?

I think you're the one having a problem with Musk not being some sort of ubermensch.

But you were fine earlier with government money going into hybrids, remember? "Every penny that goes into EVs is a penny lost to hybrids... sssAAAve the gentle hybrid!"

Hybrid sell - support the tech that the market and car buyers are embracing and offer the best and quickest path to achieving public policy goals. Not difficult. But sales success are such an unfair way to allocate resources...

GrandNagusZek wrote:

Again, why is this relevant in a discussion about journalistic integrity, the viability of EVs, and battery technology?

The relevance is the car review raised the question of the consumer appeal of an electric vehicle. That raised question about the wisdom of supporting a relatively esoteric and expensive technology with no clear payoff when cheaper and more widespread technical solutions are readily at hand. And that brought in questions about government support of a private enterprise that doesn't seem to be able to stand on its own two feet because other alternatives on the market are more proving more appealing..

Hybrid sell - support the tech that the market and car buyers are embracing and offer the best and quickest path to meet public policy goals. Not difficult. But sales are such an unfair way to allocate resources...

So you're fine with long term research a la LHC, and you're fine with government support of existing, profitable, independently viable product lines like hybrid cars, but anybody trying to fledge a new, lower carbon product on the edge of commercial viability should get out of that dammed uncanny valley on their own two feet.

There's lots of internally consistent perspectives one could take, you just don't have one.

So you're fine with long term research a la LHC, and you're fine with government support of existing, profitable, independently viable product lines like hybrid cars, but anybody trying to fledge a new, lower carbon product on the edge of commercial viability should get out of that dammed uncanny valley on their own two feet.

There's lots of internally consistent perspectives one could take, you just don't have one.

Nothing inconsistent about it - it's been the traditional role of government funded research. The government funds research and leaves commercialization to others. You brought it up earlier but Aparnet and the Internet is the classic instance - the government funded the basic protocols and paid for much of the underlying infrastructure but it didn't take venture capital stakes in or offer loans to those pioneering companies like Compuserve, AOL, Netscape, etc. Same goes for a lot of pharmaceutical developments - basic research funded by NIH but drug development and commercialization is left to pharmaceutical companies.

Perfectly consistent and longstanding practice. And once something gains critical mass among buyers, it's normal for the government to support it if it achieves policy objectives. Everyone acknowledges the long distance limits and high cost of current electric vehicles - it's not unreasonable for the government to think that they would restrict widespread consumer acceptance but that hybrids don't suffer as much from the same resistance. And if the goal is to reduce emissions, back hybrids over electric.

*sigh*(3) A profitable product that has no trouble raising money in the capital market and can slightly reduce carbon production in urban driving profiles. Fund it.

No, not fund, drive hybrid acceptance through tax credits, rebates or whatever else they can think of. You're perfectly correct that hybrid car companies can access the capital market - I agree the government doesn't need to fund Toyota to sell more hybrids and should target inducements at drivers to trade in their gas-only cars.

Maybe you think funding companies directly versus credits/rebates to consumer is a distinction without a difference but I think there is. Rebates directly induce car buyers to replace their gasoline cars - funds sent to car makers are inevitably going to be more indirect. Plus, rebates encourage car buyers to make their choice without getting government to fund specific companies. It's the distinction embodied by the charitable deduction in the tax code - it induces people to donate to charities while side stepping problems that would be raised by sending public funds directly to any charity.

I had 88 miles left, according to the car's computation. ... But while parked outside my house overnight, the temperature dipped and so did the indicated range, which now read only 58 miles

Its all over the Tesla forums:http://www.teslamotors.com/no_NO/forum/ ... e-warningsbattery lost 30 (thirty) miles of range overnight while keeping itself warm. Every time you put the car in park while in cold weather, the car warns you and suggests that you plug in... Don't Ignore this Warning.

And I'm sure it's nonsense. It's not possible that anyone at Tesla could have said anything different that what it says in a forum post on their website.

Of what nature? Tesla had told him the car would regain range and exceed the estimated distance—and it did, albeit not as much as he and the Tesla reps had hoped.

bb-15 wrote:

Broder wrote:

After completing the battery conditioning process, the estimated range reading was 19 miles; no way would I make it back to Milford. The Tesla people found an E.V. charging facility that Norwich Public Utilities had recently installed. Norwich, an old mill town on the Thames River, was only 11 miles away,

And at the end of the test drive Broder called the Tesla company again only it was too late.

You're going backwards. This happened before he ran out. It's even part of my quoted excerpt.

bb-15 wrote:

To summarize: 1. Previously Broder had been "cleared" by the Tesla company but when his car did not have enough range, he called the Tesla company for help.2. When Broder left the charging facility at Norwich Public Utilities and he was getting repeated warnings that the car needed to be charged, he should have immediately called the Tesla company again to get help in finding another charging station.

He never went to the Norwich Public Utilities facility. It was the one 11 miles away in the opposite direction. He elected to charge for another hour, then—allegedly with the blessing of the Tesla reps—proceed in his original direction.

bb-15 wrote:

Imo this is clear negligence by the driver.

Given that you can't keep the story straight despite having it in writing to refer to, I don't put much weight on this opinion.

Regardless of what actually occurred, by rebutting the NYT description Tesla has drawn attention to a few things that electric cars don't do well.

1. Charging stations - they're nowhere near as ubiquitous as gas stations. What's worse, when you pull in to charge your electric car you're not going to spend 5 minutes standing at the pump while fuel dribbles into the tank - you'll be there for at least an hour.

2. Temperature can affect battery operation. The average driver doesn't care why, they just want their car to work and get them to the destination.

3. Drive according to our instructions. Wow - the fact that driving a little faster makes an enormous impact on your mileage will hurt a lot of drivers.

The average motorist expects to jump in their car, look at the gauge which says "you have 200 miles of fuel left", and be able to drive 190 miles. They don't expect to have to adjust for temperature, driving conditions (except minimally), or plotting where the next gas station is on their trip. They don't expect to have to plan around what their car is capable of - it should just do it. And Tesla is effectively saying "our car doesn't just do it". Regardless of the NYT's alleged animosity to electric vehicles, Mr Musk has just supported the argument against using electric vehicles.

Do you really think the mid 60 temperatures could accurately be scribed as freezing? You seem to think it can.

Seems like a pretty blatant overreach there to me. I doubt the author knew the temp would be known.

My heater is off in my apartment right now (wont kick on unless its below 62, ie its set to 62 F). The temp is 65 on the thermometer. I'm in an undershirt with no shoes on (but still wearing my jeans). I'm not even cold. Certainly It would be dishonest to describe my situation as freezing, even though I would prefer it to be a bit warmer in my living room.

But the NYT author, who was dressed for winter, was suffering from freezing feet in his shoes? Needed coffee to warm his hands on? Recommends you dress warmly as a parting line?

Those superchargers are too far apart, but that article is stuffed with fake hyperbole.

Musk and Tesla are getting $100 mil. in free publicity out of this. I noticed that he's coming on Jimmy Kimmel tomrrow night (or the next show). Free PR by the boatload. (BTW have you ever seen pics of the car so widespread in the media?)

Musk has to be laughing his way to bed at night.

Reading all this has made ME want to buy one of the cars. Of course I've always been a bit of a "tree hugger".

Okay I owned a Nissan LEAF for a few months. Not quite a Tesla Model S by a long shot. But I did manage to put almost 7500 miles on that car in that time frame, so I definitely have more experience with driving an EV that most people, especially all of the naysayers in this thread who have never driven an EV.

Quite frankly, anyone who has a battery in an EV die or runs out of gas in an ICEV does so deliberately. Whether its not filling up with enough gas prior to driving or choosing not to plug the car in overnight as the NYT writer did, that is a choice you're making.

I will say that all EV builders need to be more honest with real world mileage. For example, Nissan states an estimated 100 miles range for the LEAF. But thats driving 35MPH on a flat road. However, other car manufacturers aren't innocent either. They'll say 40MPG highway, but thats at 55MPH on a flat road with the windows up and the climate control off.

But, again, running an EV to dead is a choice you make. You choose not to charge the car enough. You choose to run it in a way that will kill the battery. Its as simple as that.

Same with a gas car. I have a Prius now. In theory, I should be able to drive from where I live to Las Vegas and back and still have an estimated 150 miles or so of fuel left. So would it be smart of me to only put enough fuel in the car to get me there and back and no extra? Of course not. That estimate is based on mileage alone. That doesn't take into account the Cajon Pass, traffic at the I-15 and 215 interchange, the very large hills you have to drive over near the California/Nevada border.

So if you're test driving an EV, why would you base your drive on estimated mile range alone? Why would you not charge extra? Why would you make an overnight stop that does not include charging the car? There are hotels with charging stations. If you're stopped at an actual house where a family member lives, they will never be so rude as to say you can't plug your car in with the trickle charger overnight. In populated areas there are plenty of shopping centers, malls, stores, etc. that have free "Level 2" chargers you could use while grabbing breakfast to bump up the range a bit to get you to the next super charger. There literally is no realistic scenario where this author could not have charged the vehicle. He deliberately chose not to.

Like I said before, I owned a LEAF for a few months. I put just under 7500 miles on it in that time. Every mile counts in an EV. If I had gone based on mile range alone, there would have been plenty of times I would have run the car dead. You know why? Unexpected detours, unexpected traffic, things like that. I always thought ahead. Never once did I say "this trip is 40 miles and I have half a charge left. I'll be ok". That would have been stupid. I'd be asking for trouble. The same way I'd be asking for trouble now in my Prius if I said "oh my range is estimated at 100 miles and I need to drive 90. I'll be ok". Just like I would have given the LEAF a charge up to full, I'll put more gas in the Prius before doing a drive like that.

In the end, it all boils down to operator error. You choose not to charge up the car enough the same way you choose to drive without enough gas. He was stupid to base his assumptions on mileage alone and deliberately made bad decisions. You ALWAYS have a buffer. Always. Whether you're driving an EV or a gas powered car. You make sure you have well more fuel or charge than you need to get to your destination because you don't know what could happen and both fuel range and EV range is always an estimate and not based on real world driving conditions.

He went to bed with enough range, plus some, to get to the next SuperCharger.He then woke up to not having enough range and his only option was to charge at the Norwich public charging station, which can only deliver ~7.6 kW (240Vx32A) For a Model S, that's ~20 miles (EPA) per hour of charging.It's only human that he took the advice of Tesla that it would be enough.

Many of the public charging stations can only deliver ~3.8 kW (240x16A), which is gains a Model S ~10 miles per hour of charging.

This is not Model S' fault, by the way. The car comes with a 10 kW integrated charger (~30 miles per hour) by default and the 20 kW integrated charger (~60 miles per hour) is a 1500 USD extra.The problem is that the public charging stations can't deliver that kind of power; instead, the power level they can deliver is mostly useless for "opportunistic" charging.The original sin, though, lies with car makers which totally misunderstood this need and shipped cars with 3.3 kW integrated chargers (Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt, etc, etc).

I expect ZERO of them will have any problem, because the likely won't undercharge the car.

And temperature won't be an issue either, but you'd only mention that if you were being honest.

Look, I know that if I owned an electric car, I wouldn't have the problems this reviewer had because I'd be religious about charging overnight every chance I got. Anyone who would remotely consider driving an EV would do the same, give or take. But that doesn't make his experience invalid, and every time I see someone criticize him for not sitting around bumfuck nowhere waiting for an extra half-hour for a charge I think, "now here's someone who doesn't have a goddamn clue what the average American driver expects from a car."

Here's a point I haven't heard yet in this discussion; just think how much fun it would be waiting in a lineup at an electric charging station.

1. Charging stations - they're nowhere near as ubiquitous as gas stations. What's worse, when you pull in to charge your electric car you're not going to spend 5 minutes standing at the pump while fuel dribbles into the tank - you'll be there for at least an hour.

Given any electrical outlet can be a charging station, I would argue there are MORE charging stations than gas stations.

And given the ubiquity and easy access thereof, I would argue that the time spent at the gas station is more annoying than the time spent plugging in at the end of the day in your garage.

The only time the charge speed matters is if you are actively waiting for it --- like on a long-distance cross-country trip. ... which is a case where EV's are not as good as gas counterparts. EVs strength lies elsewhere (cheap easy fueling, good/great power, low maintenance, less than 1/10th the operating costs, etc...)

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The average motorist expects to jump in their car, look at the gauge which says "you have 200 miles of fuel left", and be able to drive 190 miles.

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Who just 'jumps in the car and goes on a 190 mile trip at the drop of a hat'. You are building a 'failure case' scenario that simply doesn't happen enough to matter. (and when it does, I'd argue the owners of a Telsa Model S would/should just use their other car)

Given any electrical outlet can be a charging station, I would argue there are MORE charging stations than gas stations.

And given the ubiquity and easy access thereof, I would argue that the time spent at the gas station is more annoying than the time spent plugging in at the end of the day in your garage.

This simply doesn't apply.Yes, you can charge a car from any electrical outlet. But you'll be mostly limited to 240Vx 10A or worse, 120x10A. That comes to ~8 or ~4 miles of range per hour of charging. It's utterly impractical for anything else than leaving the car charging when you're at home/work/hotel.For those other things, you need charging stations that can provide more power (and cars that can take it).Tesla Model S certainly can take it and the SuperCharger stations can provide it.But SuperCharger stations are far and few and the other stations are dead slow.

I have no idea who is telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in this argument, but I do know one thing. Elon Musk is bat shit crazy! Driving around a parking lot for HALF A MILE is an attempt to sabotage the test? On a long drive, a mild headwind on the highway will put more demand on the power system than a half mile crawl around the parking lot. Driving on a cold day (through denser air) drains more power than that. Any garden variety engineering genius would admit that. Unless he is hell-bent on destroying the reputation of anyone who wont kiss the tailpipeless ass of his latest technological marvel. And as for the tow truck operator having no expertise in electric vehicles, he may not know much about gasoline or diesel cars either, but he can certainly tell when a car won't move.

Given any electrical outlet can be a charging station, I would argue there are MORE charging stations than gas stations.

And given the ubiquity and easy access thereof, I would argue that the time spent at the gas station is more annoying than the time spent plugging in at the end of the day in your garage.

This simply doesn't apply.Yes, you can charge a car from any electrical outlet. But you'll be mostly limited to 240Vx 10A or worse, 120x10A. That comes to ~8 or ~4 miles of range per hour of charging. It's utterly impractical for anything else than leaving the car charging when you're at home/work/hotel.For those other things, you need charging stations that can provide more power (and cars that can take it).Tesla Model S certainly can take it and the SuperCharger stations can provide it.But SuperCharger stations are far and few and the other stations are dead slow.

Stop spouting BS. Where the hell did you get those electrical numbers?

Most 120V household circuits are 15amp and some are 20A. My 220 supply in my garage (220V here) is 40amp and if I had one of these vehicles I'd simply (and cheaply) get it upgraded to 50A, like the one to my hot-tub. (Though a 40A would still be easily sufficient.) 220x40A, as I have in my garage now, is 8.8Kw/hour, which is ~30 miles of charge/hr, AT HOME, in my garage, today, without modification.

Where the hell are all these 10amp circuits? Maybe 70 years ago or something. Look in your breaker-box/panel.

It's EASY to fully charge one of these cars, from ZERO, at home overnight, using commonly installed 220/240 circuits. The ones to your clothes dryer are probably 240x20A. The one to your electric stove is at least 240x40A. This is in your kitchen alone.

Same with a gas car. I have a Prius now. In theory, I should be able to drive from where I live to Las Vegas and back and still have an estimated 150 miles or so of fuel left. So would it be smart of me to only put enough fuel in the car to get me there and back and no extra? Of course not. That estimate is based on mileage alone. That doesn't take into account the Cajon Pass, traffic at the I-15 and 215 interchange, the very large hills you have to drive over near the California/Nevada border.

That's not like a gas car at all, a gas car you fill it up when it's getting low. When it's not getting low, you drive until it is getting low, unless you're on a piece of road where you know you won't be able to fill up. My car has a fairly inaccurate little gauge that goes from F to E with varying points inbetween and a little light that comes on. If I wake up in the morning and forgot to fill it the day before, I just go to the gas station, I'm not stuck.

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So if you're test driving an EV, why would you base your drive on estimated mile range alone? Why would you not charge extra? Why would you make an overnight stop that does not include charging the car? There are hotels with charging stations. If you're stopped at an actual house where a family member lives, they will never be so rude as to say you can't plug your car in with the trickle charger overnight. In populated areas there are plenty of shopping centers, malls, stores, etc. that have free "Level 2" chargers you could use while grabbing breakfast to bump up the range a bit to get you to the next super charger. There literally is no realistic scenario where this author could not have charged the vehicle. He deliberately chose not to.

The problem here is that the article had absolutely nothing to do with test driving the Tesla S. The NYT has already done that and said it is a good car. They were testing Tesla's theory that their supercharging points could help you get from point A to point B without having to worry significantly about your range.

It highlights a major problem with EV's right now. There are hotels without charging points. I often leave my car in the parking garage at work while flying for work, there's no way to charge there. I've gotten lost while being low on fuel before. All of these aren't problems so long as there is a gas station within 50 miles as it's a 5 minute solution to fill up. Even if there's a supercharging point nearby, it's going to take half an hour to get 150 miles of range.

You have to start actually caring about range and time if you own a EV. If you're driving further than your range, you have to factor in hours of charging. If you forget to charge it, or aren't able to where you thought you could, you're hooped until we get similar infrastructure that has to be better than the supercharging points Tesla is investing in now. Or you need to be someone who doesn't drive far, in which case you shouldn't really care about the supercharging points or the article to begin with.